Like Honey and Cigarettes
by FlameOfIllumination
Summary: PostChosen. Companion piece to ‘The lucky ones we shine like a thousand suns”Buffy decides to steal another slay.


**This is from Buffy's POV and so she is much more preoccupied with what happened than Faith, who has a more cavalier attitude to that kind of stuff, and does not have the advantage of always having had family/friends behind her. **

**Buffy's POV**

Faith is annoying and frustrating and down right rude.

She was worse in Sunnydale, not that anyone noticed. They were too busy with the 'Faith is so cool' thing to notice the 'Faith is sleeping in my house and treating me like crap' thing. Or the 'Faith is sleeping with Robin who was mine first anyway!'

Did I just say that? I'm not that juvenile.

Another annoying thing is that she eats just as much as I do but is fine with teasing me about it!

The most annoying and frustrating thing about her lately is the way she's always laughing at me. I mean, she's the one who kissed me, but she acted afterwards like I'd proposed to her!

Like I was some kind of over amorous suitor she was trying to get rid of.

Sitting there on the couch, probably sulking.

How else you could put up with one of Dawn's movies, I don't know.

She looked like she was having trouble with her demon, that's why I killed it.

It has nothing to do with the extreme boredom I was experiencing.

I saw how pissed she was, but I thought we'd fight. In fact I nearly told Giles what happened when we got home, to see if he thought it was the demon's influence but the thought of his reaction put me off it. I don't think cleaning his glasses would cover it.

What really got me thinking was the last thing she said before we left the graveyard.

"_Well, nuthin. But **next** **time** you steal my slay you know what to expect."_

Gross.

I made a resolution at that moment to never go slaying with Faith again.

I broke it the next night.

She asked me if I was slaying, and when I said 'probably alone'…she said that was fine, and turned back to the TV. She didn't look hurt, but with Faith you have to know where to look, and after all these years I know what bugs her. And that did. So I told her to come with me, we had a minor fight over whether I was patronizing or she was juvenile and then we left to find some beasties to fight. Only one, Faith killed it.

The next night, big fight, enough for both of us.

I guess Giles must have finally succeeded in persuading some of the slayers to move to areas that aren't major cities. Sunnydale was only a small town, and it was crawling with demons.

I guess I miss Sunnydale. So many people died there, so many people I love. Tara, Mom, Angel, Spike…

After Mom died I used to dream about her. I used to wish I'd stayed in L.A that time I ran away, and then none of my life would have mattered. Mom and I would never have gotten close, Tara, Spike and Anya never would have died, and Faith…

Faith is more complicated.

Was it my fault, what happened to her?

Maybe if she'd been more apart of us she wouldn't have flown off the rails like she did. If I hadn't have been so critical, so judgmental.

Maybe if I hadn't come to Sunnydale…well all this speculation is pointless now.

I'd hesitated in the hallway with her, and I don't know exactly what I wanted. Another kiss? Some explanation? A dash to the dark basement or the locked door of my room.

I don't even like girls that way. Ask Willow, she's into that, not me.

Angel, Parker, Riley, Spike, any of them could tell you that.

Of course, Spike is dead, Riley's in the jungle somewhere and Parker is…well I don't know. Hopefully he fled Sunnydale like everyone else because otherwise he's dead too.

So, what did I want?

All I know is I liked it. It felt good, wrestling with her, tangling my hands in her hair. Kissing her was different from kissing Parker or Riley. She has the same kind of power behind it that vampires do. When she kissed me, it felt like the inevitable end I'd been waiting for. 5 years of antagonism and threats ending in an almost adolescent encounter.

I just closed my eyes and it felt so right. But then she stopped. She pulled away. I opened my eyes. She was smiling, but getting up.

_No. doesn't stop._

Thankfully I kept my humiliating thoughts to myself.

I asked her what was going on and she made some flippant comment about a one night stand, her dark eyes probing mine curiously.

We went home.

And here we are again. That comment she made running through my head. The cemetery is for once deserted. She's dressed in a long dark blue jacket that reminds me a little of Spike's, and she looks smaller. My heart beats faster.

"Hello, two little girls, out after dark?" the accent is vaguely northern. The vampire is clean cut, recently shaved. A newbie.

Faith plays with him, knocking him down and letting him up before smashing him back into a gravestone. I watch. Should I interfere? Should I 'steal her slay'?

She knocked him down again. I could be crazy, but I swear she just gave me a look.

Amused and faintly disappointed.

But I don't like girls! I don't check them out like Willow does. I don't even check Faith out! Even watching her fight, I can see that she's attractive, see that she's appealing, but she doesn't make me weak like Spike used to, or like Angel does.

_Maybe I should make sure._

Faith shakes her head in the vamps direction. She's obviously given up on me.

She reverses her stake, goes to drive it in.

I steal her kill.

The vampire disintegrates under the pressure of my stake, blows away in the night breeze.

And Faith looks up, frustrated.

"If you want to fight me, B, there are more traditional ways of asking. That's gunna get annoying eventually."

I was prepared for a kiss, so her first punch made me dizzy, but I got into the swing of things fairly quickly.

"You know B, that shirt is really quite ugly!" she called, having taken up position on a large tombstone. I leapt up beside her and we rolled down to the grass together, she flipped to her feet and kept coming, continuing "It's like a small animal died in your cupboard."

"Hey!"

It was just a brown shirt, one of my old ones that I tended to wear slaying in the woods ever since I wrecked my new leather jacket on a tree branch.

I remember Willow and Kennedy teasing me- when I was so upset too!

"Well Buffy, the thing is, whatever you may have, your jacket is not going to get slayer healing just because you want it to." They'd laughed at my pain.

"Leave the shirt alone."

Faith sneered. "I really don't think I can."

I thought she was angry, I though her brain had snapped. She ran for me, full pelt. Then she stopped, laughed, turned on her heel and grabbed my sleeve.

And ripped.

Night air whipped across my chest.

"Faith!"

It was humiliation, it was embarrassment…

She ripped my shirt in half, down the middle, with a quick jerk and then danced back out of reach. With one hand I held the shreds of my shirt together, with the other, grabbed for her.

She came willingly.

She tasted like spirits, like sweet alcohol and a hint of honey. She wouldn't let me win, not even at this, and took control with her strong mouth, her tongue, the scent of her soap. She's gotten so much stronger since the last time we fought.

I was so lost I hardly noticed her hand in my shirt, her dark jeans pressed against me. She looked like she was having fun.

I couldn't let it go at that when I felt her pull away again.

"Faith, you can't keep doing this to me!"

Her smirk was so trademark Faith; she raised her hands and assumed an expression of innocence. "You did it to yourself B."

She checked me out; I felt the heat rising to my cheeks.

"This isn't fair! You ruined a perfectly good shirt and now I'm all, exposededy"

"You shy?"

"We live off a main road! People will see me!"

Faith doesn't seem to have any inhibitions so its no wonder she thinks this is some kind of joke.

She's looking at me seriously.

I don't get it. The girl has bipolar or something. Is that how you say it? Anyway no-one could mood swing like that naturally!

"Don't take this too seriously Buffy. If all this means we can't be friends than it ends."

She's in earnest, which is something I never thought I'd say about Faith…what is her last name anyway?

I waited too long to say anything.

"We are friends, aren't we?"

She doesn't even allow a pause there, too worried about what I'd say. Instead she backs away, face creased in a frown. "Look B, I knew you were too uptight for this. I'm going go and let you-"

I cut her off.

"Don't be dumb."

I kissed her, let her feel what it's really like to kiss a slayer, and pulled back again.

"We're friends. Although this is kind of a new thing for me to do with a friend."

She's relaxed- half a smile playing on her lips.

"Now what are you going to do about my shirt?" I demanded.

I glanced meaningfully at her jacket. She shrugged it off one shoulder and passed it to me. I wrap myself in her. In her jacket, I mean. It smells like cigarette smoke and honey.

The house is dark. Dawn and Andrew for once aren't watching those lame 'scary' movies they like.

Faith stops us in the living room. "Here's your jacket" I said, beginning to take it off.

She blatantly watches me, until even I blush. "Are we-?" I don't even know what I'm asking.

Faith flops down onto the couch, kicking her heels off.

"We are who we are B, what do you think happens next?"

She doesn't move from where she landed, waits for me to make the next move.

I sit down next to her and turn on the TV. I reach for her hand but she pulls it away.

"I told you, no footsies under the table or hand holding at dinner" she says irreverently, a hint of steel in her voice.

I close my eyes. I smell like cigarette smoke, but then, Faith's not the only one I know who smokes.

The feeling of her lips on mine…that feeling was almost enough to make me take things further…

The tight jeans she wore and the fact that she slayed in three inch heels…that was another reason…

But she wasn't Angel…she wasn't even Spike, through she had the tortured past and knack of speaking unfortunate truths down pat.

_**Faith is annoying and frustrating and down right rude**. She's also unbelievably good looking, utterly baffling, and very strong. Hey, that last sentence almost describes me. Just kidding._

_But I think I might have found a way for us to work. _

_I sit on the lounge next to her. I watch the TV. She relaxes, I relax, and eventually, I forget how good she tasted. I forget the way she helped me on with her coat. _

And of all people, I dream of Spike.

**There were really only two directions this could go- and I made a choice.**

**The last line came about because I don't like Angel/Buffy, I think Spike (/Faith/Willow/Kennedy) are all better choices. **

**Please review, it only takes a few minutes and it would make me feel less depressed about my exams. **


End file.
